Reliability of a linear sprint test on sand in elite female beach handball players

Abstract

Beach Handball (BH) is a new sport that emerged from handball in the 90s, its popularity has been increasing in recent decades to the point that it is postulated as an Olympic sport. This study examines the test-retest reliability of a sprint test executed on sand surface in elite beach handball players of the Spanish national team. Thirteen female players participate in this study (age: 24.6±4.3 years; height: 169.5±4.9 cm; body mass: 62.7±5.22 kg; body mass index (BMI): 21.8±1.38 kg/cm2). Following a standardized warm-up protocol, the players make three consecutive attempts on the same day with three minute of recovery time between trials, race times were taken at 5 m and 10 m. The testing protocol consisted of a 10 m linear sprint, with timing gates placed at the start, 5 m and 10 m using Photocells. The test-retest consistency of the three attempts was studied through intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), resulting in ICC5m=0.8 (good); ICC10m=0.88 (good), Pearson correlation (r), r5m=0.81 (high); r10m=0.91 (high), typical raw error (TER), TER5m=0.05 s; TER10m= 0.06 s, and typical standardized error (TEs), TES5m=0.47; TES10m= 0.38, change in mean (0.04 s to 0.06 s), coefficient of variation CV5m=7.99%; CV10m=6.58%.In addition, Bland-Altman graphs were made for a better analysis of the data showing high level of agreement in both distances. In conclusion, the use of photocells to measure the linear sprint time in elite beach handball players of the Spanish national team has proven to be a consistent method when test-retest reliability is studied in the distances of five and ten meters on sand surfaces.